Sting operation tricks man into opening freezer hiding wife’s body, Missouri cops say

More details continue to surface in the death of a Missouri woman whose body has been identified after being stored in a freezer for more than four years, according to authorities.

“There’s simply no need for this type of violence,” Webster County Sheriff Roye Cole said to KSPR33. “Truth is stranger than fiction. You just can’t predict these types of things.”

Larry Dinwiddie, 57, is accused of killing his wife Cynthia Dinwiddie with a hammer and strangulation, then placing her body in a storage unit he was renting, the Springfield News-Leader reported.

Police said that Larry did not remember exactly how long it had been since he killed his wife, but food labels within the freezer indicate Cynthia had been dead for quite some time.

“The labels of the food in the freezer were mostly from 2015,” Cole told the Marshfield Mail. “Yeah, it’s probably been about four years.”

Owners of McFadin Storage where Larry rented a unit “discovered human remains Monday after cutting the lock on Dinwiddie’s freezer, which had been stored at their facility for more than six months,” the News-Leader said. Police say they were notified and “tricked” Larry into coming to the storage unit where he was later arrested.

During his interview, Cole noted it seemed Larry was glad he had been caught, the Marshfield Mail reported.

“I think in a way he was almost glad it was over,” Cole told the newspaper. “He’d been under some stress. I think he was almost glad to get it off his chest.”

Police “believe it was a domestic dispute that led to the woman’s death,” KY3 reported. Cynthia was never reported to be missing and charges have yet to be filed, multiple outlets report.

Larry is charged with second-degree murder and abandonment of a corpse, the News-Leader reported.

This story was originally published November 27, 2019 at 2:24 PM with the headline "Sting operation tricks man into opening freezer hiding wife’s body, Missouri cops say."